Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sports Blendi Gonxhja said the completion of the façade restoration represents an important step in the complex process to preserve and modernise the building, classified as a second-category cultural monument.

The works follow the earlier restoration of the museum’s monumental mosaic, carried out under the EU-funded EU4Culture programme and implemented by UNOPS.

Gonxhja said the intervention ensures the preservation of the building’s historical and architectural values while paving the way for subsequent phases, including structural reinforcement, musealization and a broader redesign of the institution.

Earlier this year, the ministry signed a 350,000-euro technical assistance grant agreement with the European Investment Bank to support the next stages of the project.

The funding will provide advisory services for urban restoration and the reconstruction of the museum, which was damaged in the 2019 Albania earthquake. It will also cover project preparation, technical design reviews, supervision, management and procurement.

The second phase will focus on updating the project design, including the full interior reconstruction, detailed technical revisions and implementation of a new museum concept, ensuring compliance with international standards on quality, energy efficiency and sustainability.

Opened on October 28, 1981, the National Historical Museum is Albania’s largest and most important museum institution, housing several pavilions covering antiquity, the Middle Ages, iconography, the National Renaissance and independence.

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“As soon as I posted the previous photo from Voskopoja, under the effect of the impressive transformation that continues unceasingly in this area since we started the Urban Revival program, a category of people is very upset by every good work, every positive change in this country. But, who will maintain the houses since they have all left the country?” said one of them.

The prime minister emphasized that not only have they not all fled, but there you can find a lot of returnees or even those who have come from Tirana to invest their savings in hostels, which bring a much better income than an ordinary job in emigration.

“It is enough to look at how the number of tourists is increasing every year in Albania, as well as in Voskopoja, to understand why these people are investing in the future, and also to see how the Urban Revival program was not just “facades”, but a real program of economic stimulation, for communities and families that were languishing in the pits of total oblivion”, said Rama. /m.m/r.e/p.s./